The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) has created a new online map providing an overview of extreme U.S. weather events since 1990. The map highlights examples of extreme heat, heavy precipitation, drought, and wildfire -- four types of events with clear trends connected to climate change.

In a blog post announcing the new map, C2ES science and policy fellow Dan Huber summarizes the recent run of extreme weather:

“Climate change is elevating the risk of extreme weather,” writes Huber. “It’s crucial that we take stock of what each disaster teaches us so that we understand the rising risks and are better prepared for what’s to come.”

The science behind climate change will be the focus of a hearing tomorrow (Wednesday, Aug. 1) before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee titled “Update on the Latest Climate Change Science and Local Adaptation Measures.” The hearing, set for 10 a.m. in 406 Dirksen, is the Senate’s first in this Congress focusing directly on climate change science.

Contact Senior Communications Manager Laura Rehrmann at rehrmannl@c2es.org to arrange an interview with a C2ES expert.

About C2ES: The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) is an independent non-profit, non-partisan organization promoting strong policy and action to address the twin challenges of energy and climate change. Launched in November 2011, C2ES is the successor to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Despite the very different views of the majority and minority parties in the Senate, there was in fact a fair degree of agreement among the witnesses at today’s hearing on climate science and local adaptation.

During the climate science portion of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, both the majority and minority witnesses agreed that the Earth has warmed over the past 120 years. With the recent publication of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project by former skeptic Richard Muller, there are now four (NOAA, NASA and Hadley are the others) major global temperature records that are in agreement that the Earth has warmed 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 50 years.

Today’s Senate hearing isn’t just about the science of climate change. It’s also about the actions that need to be taken now to adapt to the reality of a changing climate. Businesses and governments each have a critical role to play in building resilient communities and economies.

Business-as-usual is already being interrupted by extreme heat, historic drought, record-setting wildfires, and flooding. Events from water shortages to floods are disrupting the supply chains for such companies as Honda, Toyota, Kraft, Nestle and MillerCoors. By the end of 2011, the United States had recorded more billion-dollar disasters than it did during all of the 1980s, totaling about $55 billion in losses.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing tomorrow called “Update on the Latest Climate Change Science and Local Adaptation Measures.” This is the first Senate hearing focused directly on climate science in the 112th Congress, and we hope it won’t be the last. Climate change is happening, the news from peer-reviewed science is increasingly daunting, and the public needs to hear what credible scientists are learning about the risks and potential solutions.

Today we’re updating our online map providing an overview of extreme weather events in the United States since 1990. The map highlights memorable examples of extreme heat, heavy precipitation, drought, and wildfire, four types of events with clear trends connected to climate change.

Late last week, in a heartening display of bicameral and bipartisan harmony, Congress passed a bill reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and taking steps to steer it toward solvency. Among those steps is ensuring that climate impact projections are factored into future calculations of flood risk.

In a resounding victory for sound science and policy, the US Court of Appeals decided unanimously this week to uphold both EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and the agency’s initial set of regulations limiting emissions from vehicles and major new and modified industrial sources.

Given the choice, we’d much prefer to see a new law establishing a comprehensive market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But until Congress gets its act together, regulating emissions under the Clean Air Act is really the only option.

With the Senate set to vote today on fixes to the ailing National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), a new C2ES brief explains why the program is chronically in debt to the U.S. Treasury, and how to make it solvent. We urge, among other things, that Congress allow federal underwriters to begin taking into account rising flood risk due to climate change.

The 44-year-old federally-backed NFIP covers 5.6 million American households and more than $1 trillion in assets in flood-prone areas along rivers and coasts. Flooding is not an easy risk to insure, so historically private insurers chose not to. But in assuming that role, the NFIP has at times served to encourage rather than contain risk, and has racked up $18 billion in debt in the process.